On March 22, 2023, the 2023 edition of the QS World University Rankings by Subject report was published, confirming Sapienza as first in the world in "Classics and Ancient History", with a score of 98.7, and first in Italy in two subject areas: "Arts & Humanities" and "Natural Sciences", respectively at 41st and 44th place worldwide. This year's ranking analysed 54 disciplines grouped into 5 broad subject areas. Sapienza was ranked in all 5 areas and 43 subjects, achieving an overall excellent performance worldwide, ranking among the world's top 50 universities in 7 disciplines and among the world's top 100 in 21.

Sapienza is also first nationally in the following subjects (global position in brackets): Classics and Ancient History (1), Archaeology (11), History of Art (17), Physics and Astronomy (35), Library and Information Management (43), History (49), Psychology (61), Statistics and Operations Research (range 51-100), Nursing (range 51-100), Theology, Divinity and Religious Studies (range 51-100), Anthropology (range 51-100), Development Studies (range 101-120), Biological Sciences (108), English Language and Literature (range 101-150). New in the 2023 ranking is the subject "History of Art", in which Sapienza is first in Italy and ranked 17th worldwide.

The QS ranking takes into account the following indicators: academic and employer reputation based on the opinion of recruiters worldwide, citations per paper, the use of the 'H-Index' on publication prolificacy and impact and the International Research Network, the percentage of publications on Scopus with international co-authors provided for the first time this year for all subjects.

The following were analysed:

• 16.4 million unique articles published between 2016-2020
• 117.8 million citations in 2016-2021
• 1594 institutions classified in 54 subjects grouped into the 5 subject areas Arts & Humanities, Engineering & Technology, Life Sciences & Medicine, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences & Management.